Using Two Government Food Waste Recognition Programs to Understand Current Reducing Food Loss and Waste Activities in the U.S.

C Chen,Rachel Chen

doi:10.3390/su10082760

Abstract

Food waste mitigation is a critical means of addressing current and future economic, social and environmental concerns, to ensure enough food to feed the world’s growing population in a sustainable way. U.S. federal, state, and local governments have recognized the importance of food waste issues. A variety of policies associated with food waste management, food reduction, and food donation are set to allow and incentivize individuals, organizations and businesses to reduce their food waste. This study focuses on investigating current food waste prevention and diversion activities using data drawn from two U.S. waste reduction recognition programs, the U.S. Food Waste Challenge (FWC) and the EPA Food Recovery Challenge (FRC). Participants involved in these two programs follow the EPA Food Recovery Hierarchy to prevent and divert their food waste. Descriptive statistics, crosstabs, and content analysis were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that a majority of participants were in the food store category, and that Region 9 had the highest participation rate; the top three food waste prevention and diversion activities were food donation, source reduction, and collaboration/partnership. Different strategies used in different categories by FRC awardees were identified. The results of this study can be used to identify changes and strategies needed in practices, programs, and policies. The outcomes of the study provide a clear picture regarding what has been done and what needs to be done more in the future.

Highlights

Food waste indicates an unsustainable food system when linked to economic, social, and environmental development
Since this paper focuses on edible food waste prevention and diversion activities in the United States, the term “food waste” defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is used throughout the paper
This study focused on food waste prevention and diversion practices; the Food Waste Challenge (FWC) activity forms were an important part of the data for this study

Summary

Introduction

Food waste indicates an unsustainable food system when linked to economic, social, and environmental development. Americans are wasting 40% of food produced for human consumption, equivalent to 429 pounds (194.59 kg) of food per year per person as of 2010 [1]. For most of Americans, food was abundant and cheap, easy to acquire and easy to waste [4]. America is the largest producer of food waste [5], yet one in eight Americans is food insecure [6], creating a critical need to address the issue. Food loss refers to decrease in mass quantity or quality of edible food that is intended for human consumption, but is not consumed for whatever reason. Food waste is part of food loss, but refers to removal of edible food that is still fit for human consumption along FSC [1]. Examples of food waste generated would be food not harvested due to size, not meeting cosmetic standards, and low market price at the farm level, improper storage and product recalls at the manufacturer level, damaged packaging and unpurchased products at the retail level, and over-preparation and food expiration at the food service level [7]

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